Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence

California’s Domestic Violence Advisory Council defines domestic violence as a spectrum and often a pattern of behaviors that includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse and/or economic control used by adults or adolescents against their current or former intimate partners in an attempt to exercise power and authority, which has a destructive, harmful effect on individuals, the family and the community.

Domestic violence, also known as intimate partner violence, is a major public health problem in California that affects all age and socio-economic groups. Data from the State’s Department of Justice shows that in 2010, local law enforcement received 166,361 domestic violence calls for assistance. The 2008 California Women's Health Survey reports that about 6% of women (641,000) in California experienced at least one incident of psychological or physical DV during the last 12 months before responding to the survey.